A Group Analyst’s Perspective on the Trump–Clinton Election and Aftermath

Utilizing a group psychoanalytic perspective, the author examines group dynamics surrounding and generated from the Trump–Clinton election and the aftermath with particular attention to the emotional interactional relationship between the leader and the nation. Group dynamics are explored from a psychological, social, political, and historic context.     

On the Subjectivity of the Experience of Victory: Who Are the Election Winners?

Elections represent key moments in democratic countries, and an established finding from the existing literature is that winners of elections display higher levels of satisfaction with democracy. Yet we know almost nothing about the times when voters feel like winners of an election. Using panel data in four countries, this article finds that while the objective performance of the supported party—measured using vote share and changes in vote share from the previous election—has a very important effect on feeling like an election winner, prior expectations regarding the election’s outcome as well as preferences for the supported party significantly moderate the effect of party performance on voter feelings. It seems also that the identification of the winners and losers of elections are clearer in majoritarian‐style democracies than in proportional systems with coalition governments. Ultimately, the findings indicate that measuring who are the winners of an election using exclusively objective measures of party performance may provide a distorted view of public opinion following the elections.     

‘The Origin of the Work of Art’: Heidegger

Professor Max Charlesworth and I worked, at Deakin University, on a course, 'Understanding Art'. Max was interested in the Social History of Art and in art as: 'giving form to mere matter'. Here 'form' might be read as 'lucid', 'exemplary', 'beautiful' etcetera. I am an Aristotle Poetics 4 man '… imitating something with the utmost veracity in a picture', and an Aristotle and John Cage man: 'Art is the imitation of nature in the manner of operation. Or a net'. (Cage) (See Aristotle Meteorologica, 381b Book iv.) I was invited by the University of Melbourne to lecture on The Philosophy of Art, which I did for five delightful years. There I included the Heidegger essay, giving it as favourable a reading as I could. Unfortunately I have mislaid my marked-up copy and was forced to re-visit the essay, cold. My new reading lacks - in most respects - my former geniality. Kant's Aesthetic Ideas give us more than Heidegger does. So: I stuck with Aristotle, Cage and Kant.     

Editors’ Overview: Topics in the Responsible Management of Research Data

Responsible data management is a multifaceted topic involving standards within the research community regarding research design and the sharing of data as well as the collection, selection, analysis and interpretation of data. Transparency in the manipulation of images is increasingly important in order to avoid misrepresentation of research findings, and research oversight is also critical in helping to assure the integrity of the research process. Intellectual property issues both unite and divide academe and industry in their approaches to data management. Central to the realization and promulgation of responsible data management is clear and careful communication of standards and expectations within the research community to trainees as well as among colleagues. These topics are examined and explored in depth in a special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics on responsible data management.     

The Impact of Decision Timing on the Effectiveness of Leaders’ Apologies to Repair Followers’ Trust in the Aftermath of Leader Failure

Purpose

The aim of the present research was to investigate how a negative decision outcome generated by a leader in a hasty, timely, or delayed manner impacts upon the need for, and the effectiveness of apologies to restore followers’ trust.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected using five studies in which the effects of timing of an incorrect decision on the trust repair process were investigated.

Findings

In the aftermath of a leader’s failure, followers experienced a delayed incorrect decision as a more severe transgression than a hasty or a timely incorrect decision. This effect was mediated by procedural fairness concerns (Study 1). The present findings also revealed an interesting paradox. Specifically, in the delayed condition followers expressed the highest need for an apology (Studies 2 and 3), but at the same time expected an apology to be less effective for enhancing trustworthiness than in the timely and the hasty condition (Study 3). Moreover, we also showed that the actual provision of an apology was effective for restoring both trustworthiness (Study 4) and trust (Studies 4 and 5) in the timely and the hasty condition, but ineffective in the delayed condition.

Implications

The present research shows that when the outcome of a decision is uncertain, it is better to make a decision (too) soon rather than (too) late.

Originality/Value

Despite the ubiquity of timing errors in daily life, our studies are the first to focus on the role of timeliness of decisions in the trust repair process.

     

‘At the level of the word: Nurturing justice in therapeutic conversations’

The issue of social justice and how it unfolds in the lives of persons seeking counselling has been steadily gaining attention in recent times. This development marks a departure from an individualistic perspective that construes problems as functions of personal deficits, thereby overlooking the many social inequities that contribute to the challenges people face. The turn towards social justice manifests primarily in a call for advocacy on behalf of therapy clients. While celebrating these developments, this article suggests that it is not just in interactions outside the consulting room that injustices may be perpetrated. The author invites attention to the ways in which social justice, or the lack thereof, can be understood to unfold within counselling conversations.     

Scholar’s Symposium: The Work of David Carr

This essay begins by situating the work of David Carr in relation to the reception of phenomenology in the United States. It addresses Carr’s early (and continuing) contributions to the philosophy of history, especially as this topic emerges in Husserl’s middle and later writings. The idea of point of view as this emerges in Carr’s own writings on history is examined, with special attention to differences between its spatial and temporal instantiations. Carr’s emphasis on the primacy of temporality in human experience is contrasted with an approach that is more appreciative of the role of place in this experience. It is suggested that place offers an important alternative to time as a basis for the understanding of history and narrative.     

Wellbeing at Work and the Great Recession: The Effect of Others’ Unemployment

The recent recession has generated a tremendous increase in unemployment rates in Spain. In this paper we use a very rich repeated cross-section dataset on workers’ job conditions, together with regional unemployment rates, to investigate whether peers’ unemployment affects individuals’ job satisfaction. We find that, once perceived job stability is controlled for, peers’ unemployment shows a positive effect on individuals’ wellbeing at work, greater and more precisely estimated for men and private-sector workers. The impact is highly non-linear and the greatest effect is found for unemployment rates exceeding 10 %. Interestingly, the results are robust to controlling for workforce selection.